Twitter asking shareholders to let CEO give shares to employees

OREANDA-NEWS. May 23, 2016. Twitter is asking its investors to approve an equity incentive plan prior the company's annual shareholder's meeting next week.

The request would allow CEO Jack Dorsey to give a third of his stock to Twitter employees in hopes of keeping them around.

In a letter sent to shareholders on Friday, Twitter's General Counsel Vijaya Gadde mentioned that Dorsey agreed in October to give nearly 7 million shares to Twitter employees without any cost or charge to the social network.

"Mr. Dorsey and we believe our success is due to our highly talented employee base and that our future success depends on our ability to attract and retain high caliber people," Gadde wrote. Earlier this year, four key members of Twitter's executive team departed, including its head of product and chief of engineering.

Last fall, Dorsey tweeted that he would give his shares-- "exactly 1 percent" -- to Twitter employees "to reinvest directly in our people."

His gesture came shortly after the company laid off 8 percent of its workforce, including engineers.